Who Will be Playing "Starmourn" from IRE?

Just spent the last bit of my night reading every single word about the upcoming MUD from IRE, "Starmourn", and I think I'm going to lose sleep until I get to play it.Been waiting for a decent sci-fi MUD since before I even found Achaea; problem is most are unpopulated.The lore already seems deep and the races are insanely detailed.

Anyone else already planning on getting into this? Would be awesome to have another populated MUD to play from IRE.

Comments

Unless IRE do an incredible job of advertising and gaining new players, you're not going to have another populated MUD to play from IRE. You're just going to have a different populated MUD from IRE, and some potentially dead ones because all (or even most) of their players have jumped ship to Starmourn.

To actually answer the question: I won't be playing Starmourn, unless it works completely differently to the other IRE games in terms of learning skills and obtaining artefacts. I'm not interested in retiring from Achaea, and I'm not interested in investing (time or money) in another IRE game to build up a character from the beginning.

I'm in the same camp as Antonius. I've no time to look into another MUD, especially with the way learning, lessons, and skills are designed and too much invested in Achaea to permanently retire Sobby. I'd be keen to see what it does do to the population of the IRE MUDS in general

I don't even think it is viable to start a new mud now but I am not IRE. The industry feels sunset to me. And yeah unless it is radically better or different, else it is just Achaea mechanics changed labels. Personally I think Achaea will be more enjoyable with more players. Also haven't seen Facebook ads from IRE at all...

I'll definitely give it a try out of curiosity, but knowing myself, it seems it's unlikely I'll stick with it. It would have to be very different than existing IRE (instead of just a sci-fi reskin) to make me interested enough to invest the time, money, and coding for yet another IRE, especially an uncertain one. If the political systems and combat systems feel noticeably different and time/investment barriers to participate are lower, not saying I might not be interested though.

My main fear on Starmourn is that it might just end up as 'just another IRE' with a thinly disguised version of the same herb/tree/focus thing that every other IRE I have played have had, and a small playerbase to boot once the initial excitement in the game wears off. If so, I'd rather stick with the two IRE games I currently play, instead of paying to get more of the same. Hopefully Starmourn's creators will try something new with lower entry barriers, especially as far as lesson learning goes, and less emphasis on coding on combat.

But in all honesty, with dwindling playerbases in all IRE, I'd almost rather they merge all IRE games back into one super IRE game instead of making new ones.

Super IRE is the way to go @Bors, I like where your mind is at. Like you can enter different 'realities', while being the same person, but your entire self changes as you go from realm to realm.

To answer the question though, no, I don't see a situation where I'll have the desire to risk an investment of my time or money in a maybe. They've gone belly-up in the past.

Also there's no real solution to the necessity of 'recycling' players. There's no new source of players, it's gone down overall obviously, so any new game is just another avenue through which they can try to get the current playerbase to pony up some more cash. There might be some people here and there who swap over outright, a huge mistake imo, because of the 'shiny' factor but that's just transferring fake money from one fake bank to another. The overall influx is still stagnant.

I don't see how you could viably believe it's a good decision to open up another branch of your business without ensuring a plan for a necessary increase in the highest priority commodity to a game... players.

Retire credits wont work for the initial launch, from when I pursued this line of questioning. They don't want gatecrashers coming out with 10+k credits ready. I imagine retirement credits will work after a certain point.

I completely missed Kythra's comment so basically got ninja'd by my own blindness.

My site will remain up, but will not be maintained. The repository will continue to have scripts added to it if I decide to play another game. Maybe I'll see you around in Starmourn!Tutorials and scriptsThe Repository

As far as lore goes, and what little we know so far of mechanics, it definitely seems interesting and I definitely will give it a try. Just... yeah. I don't really want Achaea's playerbase to shrink even more, and for Starmourn to be successful, I feel like thats almost what has to happen.

I'll definitely try it just to try it. Then drop $5 on it so my character is permanently there. Then I can come back after 200 IG years and be one of the oldest players and talk about how the times have changed.

I'll definitely try it just to try it. Then drop $5 on it so my character is permanently there. Then I can come back after 200 IG years and be one of the oldest players and talk about how the times have changed.

Noo no. Talk about how good you used to be. Bask in the non-existent past glory. If you need tips, I can point out some good role models..

Retirement credits aren't going to be usable at the start? Well that really kills any excitement I had. Probably still check it out but that seems like they just want a huge influx of cash from people having to buy credits instead of carrying them over.

Retirement credits aren't going to be usable at the start? Well that really kills any excitement I had. Probably still check it out but that seems like they just want a huge influx of cash from people having to buy credits instead of carrying them over.

Honestly, this seems like a good idea. No buyer's remorse with people thinking 'ooh cool new scifi mud leggo' and then finding out they hate it (or even just prefer something else) and just lost 75% of their credits.

Retirement credits aren't going to be usable at the start? Well that really kills any excitement I had. Probably still check it out but that seems like they just want a huge influx of cash from people having to buy credits instead of carrying them over.

Honestly, this seems like a good idea. No buyer's remorse with people thinking 'ooh cool new scifi mud leggo' and then finding out they hate it (or even just prefer something else) and just lost 75% of their credits.

Can't hand hold everyone. There are steps to retiring and if people choose to spend their credits, that is their own fault. You can try the game without spending them and decide instead of just rushing over and dropping everything you have into a character.

Not enough people play the games to allow for a bunch of people to quit like that.

My site will remain up, but will not be maintained. The repository will continue to have scripts added to it if I decide to play another game. Maybe I'll see you around in Starmourn!Tutorials and scriptsThe Repository

Starmourn looks interesting. I'll certainly give it a try. But I think its going to be Dead On Arrival. Sci-Fi muds never do especially well. I'd personally rather see the energy and resources being devoted to this new game channeled into Achaea and the other IRE properties, many of which seem to be suffering and chronically understaffed. Drawing away existing players from the games with dwindling bases is spreading the butter a bit thin over the bread.

If Starmourn is to be successful, its going to have offer something unique. Something like Achaea's seafaring system, maybe with space ships. If that "special something" is hidden behind a pay/grind wall the way it is on Achaea, I'm not sure its going to hold players long enough to remain viable. Minia with lasers just ain't that compelling.

Look, let's not act like this isn't the 'writing on the wall' move. I'm not faulting anyone on IRE side, business sustainability has to be number 1 priority.

The game isn't being released because we have a large player base. It's not releasing because they think they're going to gut Aardwolf or something. Every IRE across the board is losing people, with a very real new player acquisition issue. You're not recruiting people to a MUD in 2017, and those you do end up recruiting will not be in the hundreds.

From my perspective, it seems more of a 'last hurrah' than anything else. MKO is gone, Imperian and Lusternia aren't fielding many people, Aetolia is the strongest non Achaea game and it's peak is like 50-60 people? Achaea boomed because of retirement, but our pop has been pretty consistently going down again after the novelty wore off. Maybe just my opinion, but it seems that way.

The games are flagging, so it makes sense to do something to re energize your player base.

My my concern is the underlying problem won't be addressed, which is the payment model. It's atrocious in comparison to every entertainment option that is available in 2017 and going forward. It was mentioned to me we tried Reddit once, so I looked for that post. Just reams of people complaining about the payment model.

I truly hope Starmourn is different. As much interest in coding as there is these days, I couldn't picture a better place to dip into coding for results than a MUD. Could absolutely play that up, while also offering easy ways to circumvent the 'need' to code. This does nothing if the expectation is for every person to habitually buy things, that are vastly overpriced in relation to entertainment options elsewhere.

Im more than happy to spend a bit on the monthly Elite, and any DLC-esque things 2-3 times a year. I'm no longer interested in paying $150 for a text sword/laser/ship/hyperdrive or whatever.

To answer the question, yes, I will try it. But I strongly agree with Kez's post directly above this. I probably won't make it out of the tutorial if I look at their payment model/artefacts and it's abysmal.

I already retired once, and have spent maybe $30 on Solnir ever since. I don't intend on spending the kind of money I did on my retiree on any game ever again... much less one where a text sword can be $254.99... for a level 2. If you take a step back and think about that.. ouch. That's more than my car payment.